UMass Boston has been updating their COVID-19 numbers on the university website weekly, while other universities in the Boston area are updating their numbers daily. As of fall 2020, UMass Boston has a total of 16,259 students attending, including undergrad and graduate students (1). UMass Boston also has 39 different departments and colleges among the university that are fully staffed. The COVID-19 test results on campus have been updated twice since the fall semester started on Sept. 7, 2021.

Other college campuses in the Boston area have been updating their numbers daily, such as Harvard (2), Northeastern (3), Boston University (4), and Simmons (5). Not every college is updating their test results daily, however. Boston College (6) and MassArt (7) update their COVID-19 test results weekly. Since June 3, 2021, Suffolk University (8) has not released or updated their COVID-19 test results on their website, and it does not appear as though they are going to do so.

In comparison to the other University of Massachusetts campuses, UMass Lowell (9) reports their numbers weekly, as does UMass Amherst (10). Interestingly enough, UMass Dartmouth (11) has not updated their COVID-19 test results since May 5, 2021. According to Mass.gov, all higher education institutes in Boston will release weekly data regarding their COVID-19 test results and numbers onto their website (12).

Robert Pomales, the director of University Health Services, did not respond for a comment on the status of updating campus’ COVID-19 test results when the Mass Media reached out.

Having daily vaccination numbers reported is important for large communities, such as universities. It allows them to see patterns as they are happening and make decisions proactively for the safety of our community. Because UMass Boston is one of the only public institutions in the Boston area, we may lack the resources that are available to other private schools. Regardless of the fact, each of these campuses hold a large number of students who are congregating in one place every day. It is not beneficial to release COVID-19 test results weekly to some groups of people and daily for others. In order to get ahead of COVID-19 and the spread throughout our community, it is imperative to have all available data presented to us at all times, regardless if an institution is privately funded or not.

1. https://www.umb.edu/the_university/facts

2. https://www.harvard.edu/coronavirus/testing-tracing/harvard-university-wide-covid-19-testing-dashboard/

3. https://news.northeastern.edu/coronavirus/reopening/testing-dashboard/

4. https://www.bu.edu/healthway/community-dashboard/

5. https://www.simmons.edu/return-to-simmons/protecting-our-community/data-dashboard

6. https://www.bc.edu/bc-web/sites/bc-forward.html

7. https://massart.edu/covid-19-campus-dashboard

8. https://www.suffolk.edu/student-life/health-wellness/coronavirus-health-advisory

9. https://www.uml.edu/alert/coronavirus/returning/testing.aspx

10. https://www.umass.edu/coronavirus/dashboard

11. http://www.math.umassd.edu/~dyan/dashboard.html

12. https://www.mass.gov/news/college-and-university-testing-data-added-to-covid-19-weekly-public-health-report